


Restless

by telling_you_stories



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alcohol, F/F, Found Family, Gay Bar, Nile Freeman-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25680649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telling_you_stories/pseuds/telling_you_stories
Summary: “Nile,” Nicky says.She looks up at him.“Find us a bar,” he commands, and nods at the laptop sitting on the kitchen counter. “Let’s go out tonight.”
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Nile Freeman
Comments: 27
Kudos: 213





	Restless

It's golden hour. The apartment serving as their current home base is flooded with light the color of thick honey, and it's like the others are stuck in it.

Nicky is asleep on the couch, his breathing soft and even. His legs are thrown over Joe, who is holding an open book, but hasn't turned a page for at least an hour. His gaze is on the sun setting behind the buildings out the windows. Andy is watching the sunset too – or at least she's facing that direction. Her eyes are unfocused, and there's a slight wrinkle between her eyebrows. Every so often she takes a slow sip from the glass of vodka in her hand.

Nile wonders if the ability to sit long stretches in stillness is something that comes with immortality – if she, too, will someday come to pass many of her evenings doing nothing but existing, and enjoy it.

If so, it's not something she's learned yet. Like too many other things. She's restless, impatient – for what she doesn't know. She'd like to pace around the small room, open the doors out onto the little roof deck and walk circles between the sultry air outdoors and the slightly sterile air conditioning inside, but she doesn't want to disturb the others. So she settles for playing solitaire with a deck she found in a drawer – game after game, winning, losing, winning again, playing against herself, against no one. The quiet shuffling noises, the occasional  _ tick _ as she sets a card down decisively, are the only noises in the room.

Eventually Nile realizes it's nearly dark. The cards are shadowy in front of her, and she realizes she's sunk into the repetition of her games, lost time. But what's an hour to her now? She could lose a day, a week, a year even, and never miss it.

She glances over at the others and sees Nicky is awake. His eyes are open and he's looking at her. Catching her gaze, he grins a little, then says something quietly in Italian to Joe, who looks down and responds.

Nile looks away, leaving them to their private world, and shuffles the deck in preparation for another round. She's surprised when Nicky breaks the silence.

"Nile," he says.

She looks up at him.

"Find us a bar," he commands, and nods at the laptop sitting on the kitchen counter. "Let's go out tonight."

Joe grins at him. "Nicky, you know how to google."

He smiles back. "I know, but Nile wants something to do."

She can't deny it's true. And the idea of going somewhere appeals to her. She stands up to grab the computer.

"Somewhere close. I don't want to deal with a cab or the metro – I want to walk," says Nicky, closing his eyes again and stretching his arms.

"Gay bar," adds Joe, watching Nicky with a soft smile.

"Dive bar," says Andy. She's still looking out the window, where the city is beginning to light up with the night. "Less likely to be cameras."

Nile pulls up a web browser, and then frowns, realizing she's missing a key piece of information. "Where're we at?" The laptop, of course, has location identification disabled.

"Paris," answers Joe with a chuckle.

"I know that," Nile says. "But like, where exactly? An address?"

Andy stands up and walks into the open kitchen. She refills her glass from the bottle of vodka, grabs a few ice cubes from the freezer, then pulls a piece of paper off the fridge and drops it next to Nile on her way back to her chair.

It's got an address scribbled on it. Theirs, presumably.

It takes Nile a few minutes of clicking and scrolling, and dredging up what she remembers of high school French – maybe she'll finally learn how to put together more than a few sentences, now that she has all the time in the world to do so – but she finds a place that meets everyone's criteria. Bar, close, gay, dive. She spins the laptop around and asks, "This good?"

The others come over and look at the screen. They nod, one by one, and Joe grabs the laptop, shuts it, and drops it back on the counter.

Andy drains her glass and sets it down next to the computer. "It's late enough. Let's go."

She walks towards the door and the others follow, Nile a half beat behind. She asks, "Aren't we going to get dressed?"

They all look at her, then each other. They're wearing jeans, tank tops, t-shirts. Nicky is the one to answer her.

"We're going to a dive bar. We  _ are _ dressed."

"Unless you're trying to impress someone," says Andy, smirking at her.

Nile feels the tips of her ears get warm. "Nah, I'm good," she responds, working to keep her voice level. "Let's go."

The bar is cash-only. At least that's not something Nile will need to worry about – money. She's only beginning to understand the complicated web of accounts the team uses to store their funds – before, she was happy enough to have both checking and savings – but what she does understand is that the team has access to as much cash as they could ever need, and that they consider that money to be all of theirs, equally. Nile's as much as the others.

They take care of each other. In unusual ways, sometimes. But they do.

Inside, the bar is dark, noisy, and crowded, the air humid with too many bodies in summertime. The music is loud enough that Nile can feel it as much as she hears it. The clientele is a pretty good mix of men and women, plus plenty of folks she wouldn't venture to categorize one way or the other. She's never been to this bar, but it's familiar anyways, and she can feel something in her chest loosen.

Joe's gotten a first round of drinks – brown liquid with too much ice in flimsy plastic cups. Nile takes a sip and recognizes the sweet, mixed-up taste of a Long Island Iced Tea. She wonders if it's even called that in Paris.

There's a small dance floor – or at least, an open area where people are dancing. Nicky drags Joe over to it, and they press their foreheads together and put their hands on each other and dance, and though the dance floor's as public as anywhere could be, Nile looks away, feeling as though by watching she'd be intruding.

Andy's half-perched on a stool, leaning one elbow on the bar. On anyone else the pose would look awkward, uncertain, the way Nile feels right now, but on Andy it looks confident. Cool. Like she owns this place.

She's looking out across the room, her eyes focused on something, her lips quirked in a half smile. Nile follows her gaze to a white woman with soft brown curls that are incongruous with her hard muscles and tattoos, dancing with her eyes half closed.

Huh. Was everyone in this strange group of immortals queer?

Or maybe those distinctions just stopped mattering after a few centuries.

At least that's one thing Nile learned before her immortality – that when it comes to attractive people, gender is irrelevant.

She watches the woman Andy is watching for a while, then lets her eyes wander across the dance floor, enjoying the array of people in front of her. She sips her drink and lets the music pulse through her, letting her problems dissolve into the heat and the noise.

She's interrupted by a woman with short, blond hair, who says – yells, really – something at her in French.

"Um, je ne parle pas français," Nile says, raising her own voice to be heard above the music.

The woman says something else, and Nile can't understand that either, but then she puts a hand on Nile's forearm and gestures towards the dance floor, and Nile understands that well enough.

"Sure, why not," she says, and smiles.

She swallows the rest of the drink and turns to drop the empty cup on the bar. Andy's watching her with the same half smile, and when she catches Nile's gaze, gives her a brief nod.

It throws Nile off balance for a second. But she shakes it off and follows the blond woman to the dance floor.

"Je m'appelle Ni – uh, Nicole," Nile offers, remembering at the last minute she probably shouldn't use her real name.

The woman grins at her. "Je suis Collette," she answers.

Perfect. Now all Nile needs is to ask where the bathroom is, and she'll have used all the sentences she remembers from high school.

Maybe tomorrow she'll find a book store and buy a phrase book, a dictionary.

Colette is soft, and pretty, and Nile enjoys dancing with her, at least at first. She remembers her first time at a gay bar – they were stationed in Washington, DC, and Dizzy had dragged her to a lesbian bar just a few blocks from the barracks. The front was nondescript, just a door set in a windowless front, but inside the bar was packed full of queer women.

Nile had felt like she was at a banquet after a lifetime of crumbs. A room full of women like her – more or less – where she could be herself and not worry about who would see or whether they'd care. A feast for her soul.

But here, with the music pulsing and her hands on Collette's hips, she's losing that sense of comfort, of warmth. She's not like the other people in this bar. Not most of them. Not anymore.

She feels separate. Isolated.

And sober.

She can fix at least one of those.

When the song switches over Nile politely takes her leave of Collette and heads back to the bar. Joe and Nicky join her as she pulls up next to Andy.

"You take the next round," Nicky calls, and Nile nods.

She leans over the bar trying to catch the bartender's eye, failing for several long minutes. Finally Andy elbows in, and almost instantly the bartender is there. Andy nods at Nile, and the bartender reluctantly turns away from Andy to her.

"Quatre tequila, s'il vous plaît," says Nile, holding up four fingers to make sure the point gets across despite her accent.

"Double," adds Andy, with perfect French pronunciation, and winks at the bartender.

Nile looks at Andy in surprise. "Double?"

Andy leans in. "Trust me," she says in Nile's ear. Everyone else is shouting to be heard above the music, but somehow Andy has figured out how to pitch her voice so it comes in  _ under _ the noise. Her voice is low, and intimate, and Nile can feel the heat of Andy's mouth next to her ear, and it takes all her control not to shiver.

But Andy is still talking. "Technically alcohol's a poison. Your body will heal it out of your system. You'll never have to worry about a hangover again, but if you want to get drunk, you'll have to work for it."

Nile leans back to look at her. "And what about you?"

The skin around Andy's eyes tightens. Nile guesses she'd forgotten she was mortal – again. Hard to get over centuries – millennia – of habit. But then Andy smiles that half smile again and answers, "I've never been a lightweight."

By then the bartender has produced the tequila shots. Four of those flimsy plastic cups again, each filled with way more than a double shot – thanks to Andy's wink, no doubt. And four smaller plastic cups with lime slices. In this context they're supposed to be shot glasses, presumably, but all Nile can think of is the cup that comes with cold medication, that her mother would fill and have her drink from everytime she was sick as a child.

She swallows around the sudden lump in her throat and tries to drag her mind back to the present. Bar. Lights. Music. Tequila.

The bartender has given Joe the salt shaker. He grabs it in one hand and Nicky's arm in the other. Grinning at his lover, he lowers his mouth to lick the inside of Nicky's wrist and pour salt on the dampness left by his tongue. As Joe picks up his tequila, Nicky grabs a lime slice and grips the rind in his teeth. Joe licks the salt off Nicky's wrist, takes the shot, and bites the lime wedge out of Nicky's mouth.

Nile's seen variants of this performance a dozen times, at least, and the familiarity grounds her. She watches as Joe and Nicky repeat the steps in reverse, except Nicky tugs Joe's hair to use his neck for the salt instead of his wrist.

Then Nicky passes the salt shaker to Andy, and Nile's heart skips a beat.

But of course Andy just pours the salt on her own hand, holding the lime wedge between thumb and forefinger. Salt, tequila, lime – she takes the shot quickly and efficiently, as she does everything, then passes the salt to Nile.

Nile downs her own shot, puts the salt shaker back on the bar, and drops the rind of her lime into an empty plastic cup. Then she leans back against the bar, and waits for the tequila to hit and smooth out the edges of the world around her.

This time Nicky and Joe stay at the bar, too. And for a while they stand like that, the four of them, relaxed, letting the tequila work its magic and watching as the rest of the bar whirls around them.

Then the music changes again, and Nicky starts laughing, and Joe is hooting and clapping his hands, and even Andy is smiling – a full smile, this time – and they move out onto the dance floor, pulling Nile with them, and stand in a circle and dance.

And then the song hits the chorus, and it's a remix, a cover, but Nile knows the song, and they're all jumping up and down and shouting the words –

_ – I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down – _

– And Nile gets it, she gets the joke, and the tequila is warm in her blood, not poison yet, and she laughs and knows that these are her people and she belongs.

Later. The night air is cool and the streets are quiet, and Nile feels her body riding the roller coaster back down into sobriety. It's an adjustment, moving in and out of drunkenness so quickly, but easier to get used to than the feel of her body reknitting muscle fibers and un-cracking bones.

Back in the apartment, Joe and Nicky disappear into their bedroom, but Andy grabs a bottle of vodka off the counter and gestures at Nile. She follows her out on the roof deck, and shuts the door behind herself at Andy's indication.

"Trust me," Andy says, collapsing on one of the two lounge chairs, "You want a couple of walls between you and them right now." She takes a long swig from the bottle, and sets it down on a small metal table covered in flaking white paint.

Nile sits on the other lounge chair and lets herself sink into the cushion. It's thin and smells slightly of mildew, but the night feels good. She grabs the bottle from where it sits between the two chairs and takes a drink, then leans back to look at the sky.

Even though the night is clear, there's only a few stars visible. Typical light pollution – it's the view she's been used to most of her life. Except the one night she and Jay and Dizzy dragged a blanket out on the sand in Afghanistan, and spent hours staring up at the thousands of pinpricks of light above them, letting themselves fall into the infinity of the universe.

She's falling again, into memories, into grief at the world she's left behind, until Andy's voice pulls her back.

It's like she's been reading Nile's mind. "I hate city skies. Next we're going someplace in the country – somewhere we can see the stars."

Nile takes another swallow of vodka and sets the bottle back on the table before closing her eyes. She lets herself drift – carefully avoiding thoughts of the past, trying to keep away from too much thinking about the future.

It doesn't work very well. She opens her eyes again and asks, "Does it get easier?"

Andy is doing her thousand yard stare again. Nile appreciates that, as much as she's certainly thought about this question before – probably answered it, too, for each new immortal – Andy takes her time answering Nile.

Finally, she says, "I don't know about easy. But you get used to it. Some parts are comfortable. Some of it... some of it's good." She smiles a little. "Tonight was a good part, I think."

Nile smiles too, and pulls her knees up to her chest. "Yeah, tonight was good."

After a minute, Andy continues, "You'll have more time to enjoy the good parts, too. Ideas. Music. Food. Art. Sex."

Nile grins at the last two. "Rodin?" she asks, teasing.

Andy, of course, is unflappable. She smiles fondly, still looking out over the city. "Yeah, that was a good part." She pauses, then adds, "You'll have time to learn, to think, to create. To accomplish what you hadn't thought you could."

Nile thinks about about learning French. Then she thinks about how many languages Andy must speak, about how those languages have changed over time, have died, as Andy has not, and she quickly starts to feel overwhelmed. So she cracks a joke: "Maybe I'll finally lose those last five pounds."

Andy turns to look at her, then. Drags her eyes over Nile from head to toe, like she's evaluating her against some kind of rubric. Nile focuses on keeping her breath even.

Finally, Andy says, "You don't need to lose five pounds."

It's a statement, delivered with Andy's usual air of authority, but there's a flicker of heat in her eyes that makes Nile's breath hitch. A tiny noise, and she hopes for a second Andy didn't catch it, but then Andy's eyes narrow and she's looking at Nile again.

After a moment, Andy gives a tiny nod like she's made a decision, and moves the bottle of vodka off the table and to the other side of her chair, away from Nile.

"What, you not sharing anymore?" asks Nile, trying to lean into cockiness to cover up the feeling in her gut.

"Just wait," answers Andy.

"Andy, c'mon –"

"Nile."

It's another statement. No note of anger, or pleading, or any emotion at all. Nile sighs and lies back again. She's figured out by now that when Andy's being inscrutable it's easier to just wait her out, and that when she has a request it's generally for a good reason.

So Nile shuts her eyes and feels her body riding out the last of the vodka, rolling up a small hill towards tipsy before coasting back down into sobriety. It is, when she relaxes into it like this, almost an enjoyable sensation.

She's opened her eyes again and is watching the lights of the city flicker when she hears Andy shift. She looks over and sees Andy's moved to straddle the lounge chair, leaving the bottom half of the cushion free.

"Come here," she says, and waves Nile over.

The tension in the pit of her stomach intensifies – fear? excitement? – but Nile does her best to ignore it as she moves over to sit in front of Andy, her feet firmly on the ground but her torso turned towards her.

Andy is looking at her again, leaning in a little and gazing into Nile's eyes like she's searching for something. She must find what she's looking for because after a moment, she gives a little nod and sits back, leaning into the lounge cushion and putting her hands behind her head.

"All right," she tells Nile, like she's answering some question Nile hasn't asked. "You can kiss me, if you want to."

"What?" The pit in Nile's stomach widens into a gaping chasm and her heart starts racing.  _ Obviously _ she wants to kiss Andy, but not if she's going to be such a cocky motherfucking asshole about it.

But Andy just repeats, "You can kiss me," and raises an eyebrow.

Nile is flailing internally, but bears down on it. She crosses her arms. "Aren't you worried that'll make things weird?"

Andy shrugs. "If it does we've got plenty of time to get over it."

Nile snorts. "I've got time. But do you?"

She instantly regrets it as Andy tenses a little, and her eyes flick away. But it's just for a second – then Andy is looking at her again, and giving her that frustratingly sexy smirk. "I guess not. So you'll have to make a decision sooner rather than later."

Nile uncrosses her arms, and hesitates. She says, proud of how even her voice is, "Do you  _ want _ me to kiss you?"

Andy just looks at her. Finally she answers, "I wouldn't let you do anything I didn't want."

Her voice is still strong, confident, but there's a tiny note of softness in it. When Nile still hesitates, Andy waves towards the bottle of vodka on the ground. "Or we can go back to drinking. It's your call."

And that decides her. It  _ is _ her call, and she makes it.

Andy's lips are soft, as soft as Nile had imagined them. As soon as they make contact Andy leans forward a little, moving her hands from behind her head to grip Nile's shoulders. She tucks her thumbs under the edges of Nile's tank top, moving them in small circles against Nile's skin. The touch is so tender that Nile gasps a little. Andy takes advantage of her open mouth to slip the tip of her tongue against the inside of Nile's lips.

They're awkwardly positioned, Nile leaning sideways, so she shifts closer, moving one knee onto the chair and reaching out to grip Andy's hips. At the contact Andy's breath catches – just a tiny bit, such a small sound that Nile wouldn't have heard it if their mouths weren't literally pressed together – but they are, so she does.

Nile grins, and slips her fingers under the hem of Andy's shirt to trace her fingertips along the bare skin. Andy lets out another tiny gasp, and Nile leans in to kiss her harder, her own breath stuttering.

Later, Nile has shifted again, straddling Andy's legs to sit in her lap, their torsos pressed together. She's pulling off Andy's shirt when Andy laughs, low in her throat.

"You know," she says to Nile, as she ducks out of her shirt and Nile drops it on the ground, "I was a god."

"Not  _ my _ God," answers Nile with a growl, as she cups Andy's breasts in her hands and leans in to put her mouth on the spot where Andy's neck meets her shoulders.

Even later, Nile is gasping, seeing stars despite the dark night sky. "Yes. God – yes, oh my god, Andy, oh my god –"

And Andy is giving her that cocky smile again, and whispers, body tight against her and mouth against her ear, "I thought maybe I could change your mind."

Nile's only answer is another gasp and a moan.

**Author's Note:**

> The bar Nile remembers from DC is real. While it was open, it really was just a few blocks from the Marine barracks. It was named [Phase 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_1_\(bar\)) and it was the longest continuously running lesbian bar in the country before it closed in February 2016.
> 
> The gay bar in Paris doesn’t have a real-world counterpart, but anyone who’s been to a gay dive bar with a tiny dance floor and felt either completely out of place, or a soul-deep sense of belonging, or both, will recognize that it is real in spirit.


End file.
